BMC appoints Four administrators to oversee its medical colleges

Mumbai: Considering the increasing workload on the deans of its medical colleges and hospitals, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has appointed four administrators to reduce the workload on the deans.

The administrator oversees a hospital's day-to-day operations and strategic planning. They monitor the hospital's human resources, patient care, and quality control components.

Over the past many decades, the role of hospital administrator has consistently remained vacant, leading to the deans taking on the extra responsibility of handling administrative duties. This has significantly increased their workload. To help the respective dean with the day-to-day operations of the hospitals, the administrator will be managing the work and report back to the dean.

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Dr Sudhakar Shinde, additional municipal commissioner, BMC told HT, “These appointments were made to reduce the workload of the dean so that they can concentrate more on the clinical and research work in the hospitals. Major health institutes like AIIMS also have administrators. Over many decades, the workload in our hospitals has gone up. With the increasing workload on the deans and medical staff, a need for administrative support was felt."

“The administrators will be assisting in getting the engineering work done in the hospitals, solving the manpower and union-related issues, ensuring sanitation and cleanliness is maintained,” said a senior BMC official.

The selection of these administrators is also viewed as a measure to expedite the accreditation process of the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH) for the BMC hospitals. NABH standards emphasize patient safety and the quality of service delivery by hospitals in the changing healthcare environment.

Welcoming the move, Dr Avinash Supe, ex-director of major civic hospitals and dean of KEM Hospital said, "The administrative post was there in the 90s but later discontinued, and the deans continued to play the dual role with the help of deputy deans. In corporate hospitals, we have an administrator and medical director. You need an administrative person to look after the HR, labour issues etc."

Earlier, on a pilot basis, it had appointed an officer for all its medical colleges-KEM Hospital and Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College-Parel, LTMG Hospital and medical college-Sion, Topiwala National Medical College & B Y L Nair Charitable Hospital-Mumbai Central and HBT Medical College and Dr RN Cooper Municipal Hospital-Juhu.

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